642 
B5 


OF  THE 
UNIVERSITY 

OF 


1.  A/    t/t2 


IT-L. 


THE 


•NATION  AND  THE  SOLDIER. 


-5HA  MEMORIAL  ADDRESS^- 


BY 


REV.  JOHN  H. BARROWS.   D.  D., 


Pastor  of  the  First  Presbyterian  Church,   Chicago. 


DELIVERED 


CENTRAL  MUSIC  HALL,  SUNDAY,  MAY  27th.  1883. 


PRICE  TEN  CENTS. 


CHICAGO: 
THE  COMRADE  PUBLISHING  OFFICE, 

193  Washington  Street, 

1883. 

I  Copyrighted.] 


DEDICATED 

to 
THE  FIRST  PRESBYTERIAN  CHURCH  OF  CHICAGO, 

Whose    Generous  Contributions 

furnished    forth    the  Services  of  the 

Memorial   occasion  here  recorded. 

The  Veteran    Soldiers  of  Chicago 

take    this   method    of    expressing  their 

appreciation  of  the  kindness  of  the  members 

of  this  Church,  and  of  its  pastor,  who,  on  that  evening 

thrilled  them  with  a  patriotic  fire  which  never  burned  nnore 

brightly  within  them  than  on  this  eventful  occasion. 


IE 


INTRODUCTION. 

ERE  is  a  church  in  Chicago  that  was  orguniz-jd  from  the  Army 
X  and  which  has  not  forgotten  its  nurturing  mother.  Fifty  years 
imo,  in  18!J:>,  wlun  Chicago  numbered  300  people,  including  the 
irarrison  who  kept  tlie  fort,  this  church  was  formed.  Its  minister  was  a 
homo  missionary  ;  its  first  Elder  was  the  Commandant  of  the  Fort ;  its 
members  were  soldiers  of  the  army.  Its  congregation  were  summoned  to 
their  services  by  the  fife  and  drum.  The  fife  accompanied  its  hymns. 
Soldiers  in  uniform,  twenty-three  in  number,  partook  of  its  communion, 
and  there  gathered  a  little  body  of  the  people.  Peace  sat  upon  Lake 
Michigan,  the  garrison  was  withdrawn,  but  the  church  remained.  Great 
offshoots  have  divided  from  the  parent  stem  on  each  of  the  three  sides, 
but  the  old  body  remains  aggressive  and  militant.  Its  church  edifice 
cost  §16,000.  Its  membership  numbers  nearly  1,000.  But  its  pastor 
feeling  that  some  one  should  hold  the  fort  near  the  old  mission  ground, 
the  people  responded.  From  the  first  of  October  to  the  last  of  May, 
they  hired  the  great  Central  Music  Hall,  which  will  seat  4,000;  pro 
vided  for  a  magnificent  choir,  an  organist  unsurpassed,  and  solo  singers 
of  great  merit,  and  each  Sunday  night  the  pastor  held  his  meetings. 
The  expense  for  hall,  music  and  printing  averaging  $130  for  each 
service. 

As  a  fitting  close  of  the  present  season,  a  memorial  service  in  honor  of 
the  nation's  dead  and  of  their  cause  was  here  called  by  the  descendants 
of  the  soldier  church  on  Sunday  evening,  May  27,  1883.  The  veterans 
were  invited,  and  3,000  seats  reserved  for  the  soldiers  of  the  Grand 
Army  were  filled  by  them.  Then  the  hall  was  crowded  to  the  roof,  and 
thousands  who  sought  admission  had  to  go  away.  The  Union  Veteran 


4  THE  NATION  AND  THE  SOLDIER. 

Club,  under  command  of  Captain  Sexton,  and  Posts  5,  7,  9,  28,  40,  50 
and  91,  commanded  by  Colonel  Swain,  attended  in  a  body. 

The  great  organ  and  the  hall  were  draped  with  the  national  flag, 
while  the  colors  in  the  hands  of  the  color-bearers  of  the  Posts  gathered 
on  either  end  of  the  stage  fringed  the  scene  of  peace  with  martiai  pomp. 

Upon  the  stage  behind  the  speaker,  sat  a  choir  of  150  men.  The 
Appollo  Club,  led  by  Professor  Tomlins,  one  of  the  great  musicians  of 
the  time. 

The  services  were  opened  by  the  choir  singing  the  hymn,  "O  G-od 
beneath  thy  guiding  hand."  The  33d  Psalm  was  then  read,  and  a 
memorial  hymn  sung,  when  Dr.  Barrows  said:  "In  our  missionary 
gatherings  we  are  accustomed  to  sing  'The  Morning  light  is  breaking.' 
and  in  all  our  patriotic  gatherings  we  sing  'My  country,  'tis  of  thee,'  let 
me  introduce  the  honored  author  of  the  hymns,  the  Reverend  Samuel 
Francis  Smith,  of  Boston,  Massachussetts,  who  will  lead  us  ia  invoca 
tion  to  the  throne  of  grace." 

Fifty-one  years  have  passed  since  the  banner-hymn  first  floated 
from  his  pen,  but  age  sits  lightly  on  the  reverend  bard,  and  the  voice 
whose  music  has  led  patriot  millions  in  his  song,  rose  sweet  and  clear  and 
pure,  reaching  the  utmost  corner  of  the  vast  hall,  and  leading  all  in 
thanks  for  the  life  of  the  men  who  died  in  field  and  camp  and  prison, 
and  at  their  homes ;  of  martyred  Lincoln,  Illinois'  great  son,  and  those 
who  bore  the  burden  and  yet  live,  that  freedom  and  our  country  might 
be  saved.  He  was  at  home,  among  the  soldiers  of  the  country,  and  their 
hearts  went  with  him  before  the  Almighty  throne. 

Johu  McWade  (an  old  soldier  with  one  arm)  most  beautifully  sang 
the  solo:  "Tenting  on  the  old  camp  ground,"  the  choir  joining  in  the 
chorus. 

Then  was  sung  the  hymn  (no  longer  Dr.  Smith's  but  America's), 
uMy  country  'tis  of  thee,  sweet  land  of  liberty,  of  thee  I  sing."  Within 
two  years  the  grateful  ears  of  its  author  has  heard  it  sung  in  far  oft' 
Hindostan  by  native  choirs ;  by  imperial  mandate  of  the  Empress  of 
India,  naval  bands  on  British  ships  welcomed  him  with  his  own  song ; 
in  London  and  on  the  Continent  it  swelled  to  do  him  honor,  but  here 
4.000  veteran  voices  drowned  the  vast  organ's  power,  as  in  mighty 
•sympathy  each  joined  the  bard  in  singing,  and  made  the  words  his  own. 

The  Apollo  Club  sang  Keller's  Memorial  hymn,  and  then  followed 
the  address,  Dr.  Barrows  basing  his  remarks  on  the  following  verse  of 
the  Psalms: 

"Blessed  is  the  nation  whose  God  is  the  Lord,  and  the  people  whom 
He  hath  chosen  for  His  own  inheritance." — Psalms,  xxxii:  12. 


THE  NATION  AND  THE  SOLDIER.  5 

ADDRESS: 

I  AM  to  speak  to  you  to-night  of  this  Nation  which  many  of  you 
fought  to  save  from  injustice,  dismemberment  and  shameful  over 
throw.  When  I  recall  the  splendid  patriotic  record  of  this  great  city, 
when  I  remember  that  from  this  goodly  State  a  quarter  of  million  soldiers 
were  enlisted  for  the  Nation's  defense,  when  I  read  the  story  of  the  brave 
men  who,  like  the  gallant  Forty-fifth  Illinois  Regiment,  stormed  the 
heights  of  Vicksburg,  and  of  the  equally  brave  men  from  this  Common 
wealth,  some  of  them  among  my  most  cherished  friends, whose  loyalty  to 
the  old  flag  was  not  conquered  by  the  horrors  of  Libby  and  Andersonville, 
and  when  I  learn  with  what  spirit  you  have  observed  these  annual  com 
memorations,  I  can  not  doubt  that  the  theme  which  I  have  chosen  is  very 
dear  to  your  hearts. 

I  shall  endeavor  to  show  you  the  worth  and  the  strength  of  the 
American  Republic,  whose  wide -branching  roots  now  enfold  and  pierce 
a  half  million  loyal  soldiers'  graves.  I  shall  utilize  this  hour  in  the 
hope  of  re-kindling  a  noble  faith  in  that  national  life,  the  links  of  whose 
indissoluble  unity  were  forged  in  the  fiery  heat  of  a  thousand  battlefields. 
But  who  can  add,  by  the  feebleness  of  words,  to  the  patriotic  cheer  of  a 
scene  like  this  ?  Shall  I,  a  man  of  peace  and  a  servant  of  the  Peaceful 
King,  hope  even  to  vocalize  the  inspiration  that  already  haunts  this  mar 
tial  air?  While  some  of  you  were  fighting  on  the  Shenandoah,  the 
Tennessee,  the  Mississippi  and  the  James,  I,  a  lad  at  school,  was  writing 
essays  on  Julius  Caesar,  or  following  Homer's  brazen-clad  heroes  about  the 
walls  of  Troy.  The  ink  of  the  doctors  may  be, in  our  civilization,as  the  Koran 
declares,  equally  precious  with  the  blood  of  the  martyrs ;  but  shall  the 
men  of  books,  on  an  occasion  like  this,  worthily  celebrate  the  immortal 
dead,  in  the  presence  of  so  many  of  the  living,  before  whose  daily  and 
nightly  vision  gleam  "the  watch-fires  of  a  hundred  circling  camps?"  In 
the  presence  of  the  soldier,  Lowell,  most  gifted  of  American  poets,  con 
fessed  : 

"  Weak  winged  is  song 
Nor  aims  at  that  clear-elherecl  height, 
Whither  the  brave  deed  climbs  for  light 
We  seem  to  do  them  wrong, 
Bringing  our  robin's  leaf  to  deck  their  hearse 
Who  in  warm  life-b  ood  wrote  their  nobler  verse. 
Our  trivial  song  to  honor  those  who  come, 
WTith  ears  attuned  to  strenuous  trump  and  drum, 
And  shaped  in  squadrcn-s  rophes  their  desire, 
Live  batt'e-odes  whose  lines  were  steel  and  fire." 

Even  Abraham  Lincoln  said  at  Gettysburg :     "We  can  not  dedicate,  we 


G  THE  NATION  AND  THE  SOLDIER. 

can  not  consecrate,  we  can  not  hallow  this  ground.  It  is  rather  for  us 
to  be  here  dedicated  to  the  great  task  remaining  before  us  ;  that  from 
these  honored  dead,  we  take  increased  devotion  to  that  cause  for  which 
they  here  gav 3  the  last  full  measure  of  devotion;  that  we  here  highly 
resolve  that  these  dead  shall  not  have  died  in  vain ;  that  the  Nation  shall 
under  God  have  a  new  birth  of  freedom,  and  that  government  of  the 
people,  for  the  people  and  by  the  people  shall  not  perish  from  the  earth. " 
Accordingly  it  is  better  to  say  that  the  soldier  honors  us.  than  that  we 
honor  him.  But,  if  any  words  can  bring  us  into  sympathy  with  this 
memorial  hour,  if  any  words  can  hope  to  share  the  perpetual  renown  of 
the  battle-field,  they  are  those  which  the  good  President  uttered  at 
Gettysburg.  They  might  well  be  read  at  all  our  patriotic  services,  for  no- 
modern  speech  is  worthier  to  be  compared  with  the  choicest  legacies  of 
Greek  eloquence,  even  with  the  funeral  oration  of  Pericles  in  which  the 
Athenian  statesman  said:  "Of  illustrious  men  the  whole  earth  is  the 
sepulchre." 

A  few  hours  hence  we  shall  celebrate  the  patriots'  Holy  Day.  ID 
how  many  hundreds  of  peaceful  cemeteries  throughout  this  continental 
Republic,  by  the  rushing  Penobscot,  the  majestic  Hudson,  the  tranquil 
Charles,  the  broad  and  placid  Susquehanna,  the  historic  Potomac,  where 
"all  is  quiet"  now  ;  by  the  beautiful  Ohio,the  turbid  Missouri  and  the  far 
off  streams  that  seek  the  Pacific  Sea,  in  classic  Auburn  where  mingle  the 
ashes  of  heroes  and  sages,  in  Oakwood  and  Graceland  by  the  storm-lashed 
shores  of  our  own  Lake  Michigan,  on  the  sacred  slopes  where  the  mur 
dered  Garfield's  tomb  is  garlanded  with  the  laurels  of  all  mankind,  in 
Oak  Ridge  by  the  Sangamon,  where  Lincoln  sleeps,  among  the  Berkshire 
Hills  where  Bartlett,  "the  more  than  Sidney  of  our  times"  rests  at  last, 
the  toil  and  turmoil  of  the  battle  over,  on  the  heights  of  Arlington,  over 
looking  the  Nation's  Capital,  where  the  precious  sod  is  billowy  with  ten 
thousand  graves,  and  here  and  there  let  us  hope,  still  further  southward, 
where  our  soldiers  died,  shall  patriots  gather  and  loyal  hands  shall  lay  the 
blossoming  wreaths,  entwined  with  loving  and  grateful  memories  and 
dewy  with  tears  that  tell  of  pride  and  sorrow  both,  on  those  bannered 
mounds, — how  the  number  of  them  grows  as  the  years  pass  away! — 
beneath  which  rest  the  mouldered  forms  of  men,  the  flower  and  beauty 
of  their  time,  who  plunged  into  the  red  fog  that  stretched  two  thousand 
miles  along  the  ridge  of  battle,  that  the  flag  of  an  unbroken  nationality 
and  an  inviolable  freedom  might  forever  float  above  the  Republic's 
undivided  and  imperial  domain. 

I  greatly  value  the  martyred  soldier's  day  in  our  Nation's  calendar, 
mingling,  as  we  may  reverently  believe,  something  of  the  solemnity  of 


THE  NATION  AND  THE  SOLDIER.  7 

Good  Friday  with  something  of  the  joy  of  Easter,  a  day  which  speaks 
of  life  born  of  death,  recalling  to  a  younger  generation  growing  up  in  the 
midst  of  bustle  and  luxury,  those  heroic  years  when  treasure  and  'blood 
were  counted  little,  while  civilization  and  human  rights  were  at  stake. 
Decoration  day  has  appropriated  the  better  uses  of  the  Fourth  of  July. 
It  has  not  been  degraded,  like  our  chief  national  holiday,  by  bluster  and 
dissipation.  It  keeps  a  soberer  and  healthfuller  tone,  worthier  a  Nation 
whose  life  depends  on  the  intelligence  and  good  principle  of  its  citizens. 
The  glory  of  that  day  is  that  it  commemorates  not  our  Declaration  of 
Independence,  but  the  preservation  of  the  independent  national  life 
which  our  fathers  declared  co  be  theirs.  In  his  message  to  Congress  on 
the  Fourth  of  July,  1861,  at  the  opening  of  the  War,  Mr.  Lincoln  said; 
"Our  popular  government  has  often  been  called  an  experiment.  Two 
points  in  it  our  people  have  settled,  the  successful  establishing  and  the 
successful  administering  of  it.  One  still  remains, — its  successful  main 
tenance  against  a  formidable  attempt  to  overthrow  it."  It  was  to  vindi 
cate  the  unity  of  the  Nation  and  make  it  perpetual,  that  you  O  men  of 
Illinois  rose  up  and  sent  forth  your  sons  to  defend  the  imperilled  nation 
ality.  It  was  because  you  believed  that  ours  is  not  a  confederacy,  but  a 
nation  and  hence  a  moral  personality  that  can  not  be  wounded  in  any 
part  without  shame  and  disaster,  that  the  regiments  of  the  great  Prairie 
Commonwealth  hastened  southward  in  those  April  days  which  gave  us 
new  Lexingtons  and  Concords. 

A  noble  Lord  in  the  British  Parliament  had  just  declared  that  the 
u<rreat  American  bubble  had  burst."  Even  Mr.  Gladstone,  foremost  of 
living  statesmen,  had  expressed  the  opinion,  since  publicly  and  penitently 
retracted,  that  tao  Union  should  and  would  be  divided.  The  cannon- 
shot  against  Fort  Sumpter,  which  has  been  called  the  "yell  of  pirates 
against  the  Declaration  of  Independence,''  was  also  and  more  a  blow 
struck  in  the  augu.st  face  of  American  Nationality,  and  0  how  the  hot 
blood  tingled  when  the  blow  fell  I  In  spite  of  acts  of  secession  passed 
by  legislatures,  not  the  deliberate  work  of  the  people,  but  the  coups  d'  etaf 
of  desperate  leaders,  in  spite  of  long  indoctrination  into  the  heresy  of 
state-sovereignty,  in  spite  of  the  eclipse  which  slavery  had  brought  in 
many  hearts  over  the  consciousness  of  a  supreme  national  life,  we  were 
still  a  nation.  The  flag  had  many  stripes  and  stars,  but  the  flag  was  one. 
The  Constitution  was  the  work  of  "the  people  of, these  United  States," 
and  the  people  was  one  people.  The  Government  under  that  Constitu 
tion  had  in  it  all  the  elements  of  supremacy  and  universality,  and  the 
Government  was  one.  Hence,  when  the  blow  was  struck,  the  Nation, 
slow  to  believe  in  danger,  proudly  conscious  of  strength,  rose  like  a 


THE  NATION  AND  THE  SOLDIER. 

startled  giant,  to  grapple  with  its  foe,  equipped  two  millions  of  men, 
guarded  four  thousand  miles  of  coast-line  with  battle-ships,  carrying  on 
its  military  movements  at  points  as  far  removed  as  Liverpool  from 
Jerusalem,  and  Lisbon  from  St.  Petersburg,  making  every  petty  prince, 
every  foolish  flunkey  and  every  imperial  despot  of  the  Old  World  respect 
its  force,  while  some  of  them  prayed  for  its  ruin,  and  to-day,  with  reverent 
gratitude,  let  us  say  it,  to  the  men  who  climbed  the  heights  of  Lookout 
Mountain,  faced  death  in  that  forest  of  death,  the  Wilderness,  and 
strangled  the  confederacy  in  the  cordon  of  forts  that  encompassed  Peters 
burg  and  Richmond,  to  day,  Lord  John  Russell's  bubble  that  did  nnt 
burst,  shines  resplendent  on  the  brow  of  the  century,  the  crown  jewel  of 
the  world,  with  a  lustre  which,  God  grant,  may  never  grow  dim. 

The  noble  Frenchman,  Count  de  Gasparin  was  right  in  naming  the 
war  for  the  Union,  '4the  uprising  of  a  Great  People."  In  1814,  Jefferson 
who  was  the  chief  antagonist  of  all  centralization,  and  who  is  wrongly 
regarded  as  justifying  the  dogma  of  state  sovereignty,  wrote  to  LaFayette; 
"The  cement  of  the  Union  is  in  the  heart-blood  of  every  American.  I  do 
not  believe  that  there  is  on  earth  a  government  established  in  so  immova 
ble  a  basis.  Let  them  in  any  State,  even  in  Massachusetts  itself,  raise 
the  standard  of  separation,  and  its  citizens  will  rise  in  mass,  and  do  justice 
themselves  on  their  own  incendiaries."  We  know  that  a  vast  departure 
from  this  doctrine  was  unhappily  made  before  the  day  came  when  State 
after  State  voted  itself  out  of  the  Union,  and  foolishly  dreamed  that  its 
purpose  was  accomplished  after  it  had  scratched  off  the  U.  S.  from  the 
national  property !  At  Baton  Rouge,  Louisiana,  there  is  a  military 
Academy,  whose  motto,  written  in  marble  over  the  main  door  is:  "  By 
the  liberality  of  the  general  government  of  the  United  States.  The 
Union,  esto  perpetua,"  On  the  18th  of  January,  1861,  months  before 
the  firing  on  Sumpter,  the  Superintendent  of  this  Academy  wrote  to  the 
Governor  of  the  State:  "If  Louisiana  withdraw  from  the  Federal  Union, 
I  prefer  to  maintain  my  allegiance  to  the  Constitution  as  long  as  a  frag 
ment  of  it  survives."  Four  years  later,  the  writer  of  these  words,  the 
most  brilliant  military  genius  of  the  war,  led  a  great  army  from  Atlanta 
to  the  sea,  William  T.  Sherman.  There  was  in  this  man  no  irresolution, 
no  sense  of  divided  allegiance,  though  he  knew  better  than  Mr.  Seward. 
tfie  determination  of  the  South  and  saw  the  pillars  of  this  national 
temple  falling  on  every  side. 

It  was  my  fortune,  three  years  after  the  Franco-Prussian  war,  to  be 
present  at  the  trial  of  Marshal  Bazaine,  in  that  little  palace  among  the 
woods  of  Versailles,  which  Louis  XIV  had  erected  for  one  of  his  favor 
ites.  Bazaine  had,  as  you  remember,  shown  great  irresolution  at  Metz, 


THE  NATION  AND  THE  SOLDIER.  0 

and  when  lie  sought  to  exculpate  himself'  by  declaring  that  he  could  not 
tell  what  was  the  government  of  the  country — or  if  it  still  had  any  govern 
ment,  the  President  of  the  military  tribunal,  the  Due  d'Auniale,  burst 
forth  on  the  Marshal,  with  the  pathetic  and  passionate  cry: — "Mais  la 
France,  la  France!"  "But  France,  France!"  The  instinct  of  the 
nation's  indestructible  life  found  expression  in  that  intense  and  ringing 
utterance.  France  still  lived,  and  to  her  every  soldier  and  citizen  owed 
supreme  and  instant  allegiance.  Though  her  Emperor  was  a  prisoner, 
his  Empire  a  ruin,  though  the  Prussian  cavalry  had  swept  over  her  vine- 
clad  hills,  and  the  Prussian  artillery  had  destroyed  her  army  at  Sedan, 
though  a  hostile  sovereign  held  her  fortresses  in  his  iron  hand  and  en 
camped  his  cuirassiers  in  the  very  heart  of  Paris,  in  those  Elysian 
Fields  between  the  gorgeous  Palace  of  the  Tuileries  and  the  Arch  of 
the  First  Napoleon's  triumph,  France  the  Nation  was  not  dead.  She 
extemporized  a  government,  liberated  her  soil,  paid  her  indebtedness  and 
rose  up  purified  and  strengthened,  to  moral  heights  never  reached  before. 
And  so,  when  our  horizon  was  lurid  with  battle-fires,  behind  which  ap 
peared  the  shape  of  a  hostile  confederacy,  when  brave  men  walked  with 
troubled  and  clouded  brows  through  the  streets  of  our  great  cities,  when 
long  delays  made  even  the  patriot  heart  sick  for  a  moment  of  the  agony 
of  war,  while  gentle  wives  and  mothers  listened  for  the  daily  tidings 
from  the  front  as  for  the  thunder  of  artillery  carrying  doom  to  their  own 
households,  in  those  days  when  "Lee  marched  over  the  mountain  wall'' 
and  poured  his  armies  between  the  loyal  North  and  the  Nation's  Capital, 
there  still  glowed  in  the  people  s  deeper  consciousness  the  sense  and  cer 
tainty  of  a  national  life,  indestructible  and  all-pervasive,  reaching  like 
the  air  we  breathe,  from  the  fishing-huts  of  our  northeastern  shores  to 
the  woodman's  camp  and  the  herdsman's  ranch  by  the  western  sea,  and 
eager  to  rush  like  the  north  wind  through  the  long  line  of  battle-smoke, 
southward,  till  it  met  the  warm  waters  of  the  Gulf.  Such  a  conscious 
ness  inspired  a  passionate  boldness  in  holy  women,  as,  bidding  their  sous 
go  forth,  they  cried  "0  God  save  my  country."  It  was  this  faith  that 
rang  through  the  words  of  our  bravest  leaders,  and  uplifted  the  heavy 
heart  of  the  good  President  as  he  wrestled  in  prayer  with  the  Ruler 
of  Nations.  The  dying  soldier  at  Gettysburg  and  (Jhickamauga  felt  it 
like  a  breath  of  heavenly  consolation,  as  looking  up  to  the  old  flag, 
powder-stained  and  bullet-riddled,  he  thought  of  the  American  Re 
public — which  undivided  and  made  purer  by  sufferings,  should  live 
on  forever.  And,  even  among  the  dusky  children  of  bondage,  men 
without  a  country,  with  the  faith  that  the  national  banner  meant 
freedom,  there  iawned  the  glad  conviction,  that  they  too,  rising  from 


U 


10  THE  NATION  ^  ND  THE  SOLDIER. 

chattlehood  to  citizenship  might  have  a  homo  and  a  country  this  side  of 
the  Heavenly  Canaan !  And  woe  be  to  us  if  any  who  take  refuge  be 
neath  that  flag,  shall  fail  of  that  freedom  and  that  protection  which  the 
soldiers,  white  and  black,  died  to  assure. 

The  war  which  you,  honored  soldiers,  brought  to  a  successful  ter 
mination,  settled  the  question  whether  our  national  existence  can  be 
maintained  against  a  powerful  insurrection.  But,  besides  this,  it  threw 
into  the  forefront  and  illumined  with  solar  splendor,  the  supreme  fact  of 
our  nationality.  It  is  only  thirty-six  years  since  a  great  statesman,  John 
C.  Calhoun,  the  intellectual  father  of  the  rebellion,  said  of  his  own  South 
Carolina:  "There  is  my  family  and  connections;  there  I  first  drew 
breath;  there  are  all  my  hopes."  Let  us  believe  that  such  pitiable  pro 
vincialism  was  either  burned  up  with  the  heresy  and  barbarism  which 
gave  it  birth  and  power,  or  will  slowly  die,  as  the  Nation  enters  "the 
rich  dawn  of  an  ampler  day,"  sure  to  illumine  our  horizon. 
You  are  proud  of  Illinois,  as  you  well  may  be.  But  Illinois  is  not 
a  nation.  She  does  not  possess  the  national  attributes,  such  as  suprem 
acy,  independence,  the  right  to  declare  war  and  make  pead.',  the  right  to 
coin  money  aad  to  treat  with  other  powers.  You  are  proud  of  Illinois 
as  you  are  of  your  own  city,  your  own  homestead  or  your  own  wife. 
But  these  are  not  the  supreme  objects  of  your  loyalty  and  devotion — 
though  I  acknowledge  that  a  wife  may  have  certain  elements  of  sover 
eignty  that  do  not  inhere  in  the  commonwealth — like  the  right  of 
declaring  war  and  concluding  peace !  But  every  soldier  of  the  Grand 
Army  of  the  Republic  now  before  me,  knows  what  is  meant  by  the  Re 
public.  It  was  for  the  unity  of  the  Nation  and  not  for  the  glory  of  Illi 
nois,  Massachusetts  or  New  York  that  our  soldiers  fought  by  the  swollen 
stream  of  the  Chickahominy,  and  our  sailor-boys  cheered  as  the  heroic 
Cumberland  sank,  her  flag  still  flying,  into  the  waters  of  Hampton  Roads. 

There  is  a  small  island,  called  Attu,  the  last  of  the  Aleutian  group, 
which  is  as  far  from  SanFrancisco  as  San  Francisco  is  from  Boston.  This 
island  contains  a  hundred  inhabitants.  I  would  have  these  citizens 
proudly  realize  that  they  are  Americans,  for  I  would  have  a  national 
spirit  that  shall  melt  the  glaciers  of  Alaska  on  the  North,  and  penetrate 
the  everglades  of  Florida  on  the  South,  even  as  the  national  sentiment 
and  consciousness  of  Englishmen  go  with  them  to  the  gates  of  Delhi  and 
Lucknow  in  the  East,  the  pasture-lands  of  New  Zealand  and  Australia 
in  the  Southern  Seas,  and  where  the  hunter  follows  the  stag  over  the 
snowy  wildernesses  of  Hudson's  Bay. 

The  great  fact  of  this  century  in  Europe  has  been  the  resurrection 
of  nationalities  under  parliamentary  forms  of  government.  In  1  SI 5 


THE  NATION  AND  THE  SOLDIER.  11 

there  were  forty  distinct  sovereignties,  with  seven  different  names  in 
Germany  alone.  Thus  divided,  the  national  life  of  a  great  people  had 
no  development  and  little  power.  But  the  instinct  of  unity  was  not  dead 
in  these  petty  dukedoms  and  principalities,  and  to-day,  thanks  to  the  force 
of  kindred  speech  and  blood,  not  less  than  the  genius  of  a  Bismark.  the 
German  Fatherland,  one  and  indivisible,  sits  down  under  a  constitutional 
government  beneath  the  spiked  helmet  of  her  paternal  Kaiser. 
So  of  Italy.  Nature  has  marked  out  her  boundaries.  God  meant 
her  to  be  one.  And  in  our  own  day  eight  separate  sovereignties  have 
yielded  their  individual  lives  to  the  greater  life  of  the  Nation.  This  is 
the  story  of  Mazzini  and  Count  Cavour,  of  Garabaldi  and  Victor  Eman- 
uel.  one  flag  from  the  Alps  to  the  hoarse  Sicilian  shore,  one  national  life 
where  Venice  dreams  over  by-gone  grandeurs  looking  out  on  her  peaceful 
lagoons,  and  where  Palermo  nestles  beneath  the  southern  crags,  one  hope 
beating  in  the  gay  Neapolitan  boy  and  the  sturdy  Lombard  shepherd. 
Florence  saluting  Home  and  Rome  blessing  all,  as  the  long  divided  nation 
of  Dante,  Rienzi  and  Michael  Angelo  fulfils  the  aspirations  of  her  sages 
and  poets  and  martyrs,  beneath  the  banner  of  Italy.  Thus  Hungary, 
also,  has  come  to  the  light.  The  free  spirit  of  the  Magyar  has  snapped 
the  Austrian  chain  and  now  clasps  the  Austrian  hand  in  friendly  alliance. 
The  national  life  would  not  down,  after  Kossuth  had  blown  the  trumpet 
of  its  resurrection.  So,  too,  with  the  Greeks.  Their  classic  soil  has  been 
redeemed  from  the  blight  of  the  Turk,  and  a  vigorous  national  existence 
now  centers  in  the  city  of  Athens,  once  the  intellectual  treasure-house  ut 
mankind. 

And  what  mean  those  rising  states  along  the  Danube,  Bulgaria,. 
Roumelia  and  the  rest,  fragments  of  tho  broken  Ottoman  Empire?  They 
mean  that,  beneath  the  brutal  camp  x>f  the  Turk,  there  lived  in  those 
Christian  peoples  an  invincible  national  consciousness  which  the  scimiter 
could  not  destr  jy  in  four  centuries  of  cruelty,  and  which  the  Toryism  of 
England  and  the  watchful  jealousy  of  Europe  were  at  last  compelled  to 
recognize. 

In  one  of  the  cartoons  in  the  Pantheon,  in  Paris,  a  French  artist 
has  portrayed  the  beginnings  of  Christianity,  undermining  the  pagan 
Empire  of  Rome.  In  the  upper  zone  of  the  vast  picture,  you  behold 
a  scene  of  light  and  gorgeous,  victorious  pomp,  a  Caesar  entering  the 
capital  in  triumph,  with  his  splendid  legions,  his  captured  enemies,  his 
golden  and  jewelled  spoils  and  his  colossal  elephants.  But  in  the  lower 
zone  of  the  picture,  in  a  darkness  just  visible,  you  behold  the  early 
Christians  praying  in  the  catacombs,  whose  long  galleries  seem  to 
be  the  sepulcher  into  which  the  Roman  pageant  and  the  Roman 


12  THE  NATION  1  ND  THE  SOLDIER. 

Empire  above  must  soon  fall.  And  so  it  was.  And  thus  also  with 
the  national  spirit  in  the  European  States.  Often  it  was  forced 
to  hide  underground,  overtopped  and  crushed  by  imperial  power, 
but  its  resurrection  came  in  the  shaking  of  thrones,  the  rubbing 
out  of  old  and  artificial  boundary  lines  on  the  map  of  the  Continent, 
and  the  rehabilitation  of  Europe  around  the  national  idea.  There 
is  a  God  in  history,  fellow-citizens,  and  His  lessons  are  sometimes 
written  out  in  letters  of  fire  on  the  map  of  the  world.  The  deepest 
philosophy  now  recognizes  that  the  nation  is  not  a  political  accident,  it  is 
not  the  work  of  man,  a  voluntary  association  for  economic  ends,  but  has 
its  origin  in  God,  and  like  God,  has  continuance,  authority  and  a  moral 
being.  He  who  "made  of  one  blood  all  nations,"  hath  also  " determined 
the  times  before  appointed  and  the  bounds  of  their  habitation  ;"  and  by 
the  nation  as  such,  he  is  carrying  out  His  divine  will.  Babylon,  Persia, 
Oreece  and  Rome  appeared  one  after  another  in  the  prophetic  vision,  and 
each  had  its  work  to  accomplish.  By  the  nation,  called  Israel,  God 
wrought  out  redemption  for  mankind.  England,  Germany,  France, 
Russia,  have  parts  in  the  great  world-drama  which  no  others  can  fill,  and 
shall  we  hood-wink  ourselves  to  our  national  life  arid  destiny,  we,  about 
whom  so  many  prophetic  voices  have  gone  forth  from  the  wise  and  good 
of  many  lands? 

Remember  this,  that  while  Germany,  Greece,  Hungary,  Italy,  have 
obtained  their  national  unity  at  a  great  price,  ours  was  never  lost,  thanks 
to  you,  brave  soldiers,  and  to  your  comrades  fallen  on  so  many  bloody 
fields,  and  moreover,  like  Paul  of  Tarsus,  America  may  say  to  all  the 
nations,  "I  was  free  b.orn."  Scientists  have  found  the  secret  and  security 
of  our  undivided  national  life  in  our  physical  geography,  the  courses  of 
rivers,  the  trend  of  coast  lines,  the  great  central  valley  touching  the 
eastern  and  western  ranges  of  mountains,  our  national  store-house  and 
granary,  through  which  the  "Father  of  Waters,"  draining  the  snows  of  a 
thousand  peaks  and  fed  by  the  crystal  currents  springing  from  a  thousand 
lakes,  moves  majestically  toward  the  Gulf.  Other  men,  as  Dr.  Storrsin 
his  oration  at  the  opening  of  the  New  York  and  Brooklyn  Bridge,  see 
our  national  unity  assured  in  the  vast  net  work  of  railroads  and  telegraphs 
covering  the  land.  While  acknowledging  all  this,  I  prefer  to  look  deeper. 
I  remember  that  California  has  been  true  to  the  Nation  from  the  begin 
ning,  though  geographically  separated  from  us  so.  far,  that  in  1847, 
Lieutenant  William  Tecumseh  Sherman  was  one  hundred  and  ninety- 
eight  days  in  sailing  with  his  company  from  New  York  to  the  harbor  of 
Monterey.  And  I  remember  that  Louisiana,  guarding  the  mouth  of  our 
:great  river,  and  Virginia,  with  the  dust  of  Washington  in  her  bosom, 


THE  NATION  AND  THE  SOLDIER.  13 

tore  down  and  trampled  the  Nation's  flag.  Hence  I  prefer  to  look  back 
into  our  history  to  find,  in  the  evolutions  of  a  Providential  plan,  the 
secret  and  the  strength  of  our  nationality.  We  did  not  first  become  a 
nation  when  Lee  surrendered  to  Grant  at  Appomatox  Court  House.  Go 
back  thirty-five  years.  Webster  has  finished  his  answer  to  the  heresy  of 
South  Carolina  and  the  Senate  chamber  echoes  with  the  words  "Liberty 
and  the  Union,  now  and  forever,  one  and  inseparable."  Was  it  from 
the  waters  of  that  memorable  debate  that  the  American  nationality 
emerged  resplendent,  '-like  Venus  rising  from  the  sea?"  Not  at  all. 
For  more  than  forty  years  the  Nation  had  been  developing  under  a  Con 
stitution  which  opened  with  the  words  :  "  We,  the  people  of  the  United 
States,  in  order  to  form  a  more  perfect  union,  establish  justice,  insure 
domestic  tranquility,  provide  for  the  common  defence,  promote  the  gene 
ral  welfare  and  secure  the  blessings  of  liberty  to  ourselves  and  our 
posterity,  do  ordain  and  establish  this  constitution  for  the  United  States 
of  America." 

But  was  the  Nation  born,  when  in  1 7SO  it  hailed  George  Washington 
as  President  under  the  Constitution?  Not  at  all.  That  Constitution, 
which  the  London  Tinirs  has  pronounced  "the  most  sacred  political 
document  in  the  whole  world,"  was  simply  the  wise  expression  of  the 
organizing  will  of  the  people  back  of  it.  The  Nation,  wearied  of  sailing 
the  sea  of  democratic  liberty  in  that  leaky  and  perilous  craft  called  the 
'•Articles  of  Confederation,"  embarked  in  a  nobler  ship  named  the 
"  Constitution,"  built  strongly  with  ribs  of  the  British  oak.  The  vessel 
was  the  creation  of  the  people  and  the  people  made  no  provision  for  its 
destruction,  by  admitting  into  it  any  right  of  secession.  To  have  done 
this,  k-  would  have  brought  on  board,"  as  one  has  said,  "  a  case  of  dyna 
mite  with  a  clock-work  adjusted  to  explode  it  and  blow  up  the  ship  of 
State  within  a  given  number  of  days."  The  preamble  to  the  constitu 
tion  formed  at  Montgomery  in  18G1,  confesses  to  the  wisdom  of  our 
fathers  and  reveals  the  absence  of  national  elements  in  the  slaveholders 
league  by  the  words — not  "  we  the  people,'' — but  '•  we  the  deputies  of 
the  sovereign  and  independent  states." 

Nations  are  not  manufactured  suddenly  and  to  order  like  cotton 
cloths.  If  this  were  so,  they  would  be  soon  torn  to  rags.  Nations  are 
historic  growths,  rooted  in  the  soil  of  earth  and  bathed  in  the  dews  and  sun 
beams  of  heaven.  Go  back  of  our  present  Constitution,  and  you  find  the 
Nation  there,  impoverished  by  war,  tumultuous  and  discordant,  but  capa 
ble  of  emerging  from  chaos  into  order  and  power.  Without  a  stronger 
government  than  the  Articles  of  Confederation  provided,  Washington 
said  '-I  do  not  sec  how  we  can  long  exist  as  a  nation,"  thereby  confessing 


14  THE  NATION  AND  THE  SOLDIER. 

the  national  existence.  Go  back  to  the  American  Revolution.  It  was 
directed  by  a  Continental  Congress.  It  was  fought  by  a  Continental 
army,  led  by  one  who  never  tired  of  speaking  of  "my  country."  It  has 
been  described  as  the  act  of  the  whole  people  in  the  endeavor  to  realize 
the  Nation.  But  you  ask  if  America  was  not  born  when  the  Declaration 
of  Independence  was  sent  out  on  the  Fourth  of  July,  1776.  No.  The 
Declaration  announ3ed  formally  one  element  of  national  life,  not  even 
then  fully  assured.  I  mean  independent  sovereignty.  But  mind  you,  it 
was  a  Declaration,  not  a  creation.  It  set  forth  or  declared  what  already 
was.  The  consciousness  of  nationality  already  stirred  in  the  American 
heart.  It  made  itself  felt  and  feared  eleven  years  before  in  a  Continent 
al  Congress  at  New  York,  assuming  the  functions  of  a  sovereign  and 
separate  authority  in  treating  with  Great  Britain.  It  had  become  in- 
tenser  since  the  farmers  of  Concord  had  "fired  the  shot  heard  around  the 
world"  and  the  raw  militia  had  fought  the  English  regulars  at  Bunker 
Hill.  It  is  significant  that  after  learning  that  these  minute  men  had 
quietly  taken  the  fire  of  the  British  troops,  AVashington  said:  "The  liber 
ties  of  the  country  are  safe."  Thus  the  national  consciousness  had  been 
largely  quickened,  and  it  found  expression  in  the  pen  of  Jefferson  writ 
ing:  "When  in  the  course  of  human  events,  it  becomes  necessary  for  one 
I >« ' l>le  to  dissolve  the  political  bands  which  may  have  connected  them 
with  another."  The  great  Declaration  was  signed  "in  the  name  and  by 
the  authority  of  the  good  people  of  these  Colonies,"  which  as  united  and 
not  as  separate,  assumed  a  distinct  national  existence  among  the  govern 
ments  of  the  earth. 

Do  we  not  begin  to  understand  what  John  Adams  meant  in  affirm 
ing  that  the  American  Revolution  was  completed  before  the  war  com 
menced  ?  Nations  are  older  and  greater  than  the  governments  they 
ordain.  In  the  colonial  mind  and  heart,  in  the  convictions,  habits,  aspi 
rations  and  purposes  of  the  men  who  occupied  this  territory  from  Fal- 
mouth  to  Savannah,  men  whose  fathers  had  fled  from  the  corruptions  and 
tyrannies  of  the  Old  World  and  had  battled  with  the  savage  and  the  soil,  the 
winter  and  the  wilderness  in  the  New,  men  whose  psalms  and  prayers  rose 
heavenward  with  the  smoke  of  their  cabins,  men  whose  axes  rang  among 
the  pine  trees  of  the  north  while  their  adventurous  commerce  stretched 
its  white  arms  over  every  sea ;  in  the  minds  and  hearts  of  these  yeomen, 
sons  of  English  Puritans,  of  Scotch  Covenanters,  Hollanders  and  Hu 
guenots,  Germans  and  Swedes — heirs  of  the  great  ages  of  Elizabeth  and 
Cromwell,  of  Henry  of  Navarre  and  William  the  Silent — there  existed 
the  sentiment — confused  but  potential — of  an  American  nationality.  To- 
develop  and  crystallize  this  sentiment,  one  man,  "the  father  of  the 


THE   NATION  AND  THE  SOLDIER.  15 

American  Revolution,"  Samuel  Adams,  of  Boston,  gave  the  toil,  of  his 
ife.  He  it  was,  as  Governor  Hutchinson  told  George  III,  who  first 
sserted  colonial  independence.  All  his  efforts  looked  toward  this  final 
ssue.  It  was  he,  who,  in  17(34,  first  proposed  the  union  of  the  colonies 
trainst  British  aggression.  It  was  he  who  first  called  for  a  Continental 
Congress,  and  it  was  he  who  established,  in  1772,  those  Committees  of 
nter-colonial  Correspondence  that,  as  one  has  said,  ' 'melted  thirteen 
om mon wealths  as  into  one  thunderbolt."  But  even  he  was  the  heir 
nd  servant  of  forces  greater  and  older  than  himself.  When  we  hear 
l\>hn  Adams  declaring  that  the  idea  of  independence  was  familiar  to  the 
.rst  American  settlers,  that  it  was  "as  well  understood  by  Governor 
Vinthrop  in  1075  as  by  Governor  Adams,"  we  are  startled  like  one  re- 
eiving  an  angelic  announcement  that  he  is  twice  as  old  as  he  believed 
imself  to  be.  Yet,  the  great  Frenchman,  De  Tocqueville,  told  us  forty 
ears  ago,  that  the  destiny  of  America  was  wrapped  up  in  the  first  Pu- 
itan  that  landed  on  these  shores.  The  roots  of  our  nationality  are  fas- 
ened  in  that  New  England  commonwealth  which  coined  her  own  money. 
plifted  her  own  flag  and  passed  her  own  laws  in  her  own  name.  In  1043 
jur  New  England  colonies,  Plymouth,  Massachusetts  Bay,  Connect! 3Ut 
nd  New  Haven  formed  a  league  for  mutual  protection,  the  germ  of  our 
National  Union.  There  are  few  more  important  lessons  to  learn  than 
bat  the  life  of  New  England  was  the  glowing  center  around  which  our 
ebulous  national  existence  formed  and  crystallized.  The  idea  of  a  new 
ation,  according  to  Palfrey  the  historian,  came  with  the  founders  of  the 
lassachusetts  commonwealth,  and  their  new  nation  was  built  on  faith  in 
fod  and  His  Word.  These  were  the  men  who  erected  free  schools  and 
riranized  self-governing  towns  and  churches.  These  were  the  men  who 
onored  man  as  the  child  of  a  Heavenly  Father,  and  the  ransomed  ser- 
ant  of  a  Divine  Redeemer,  and  hence  too  precious  to  be  enslaved  by  any 
arthly  task-masters.  The  organizing  idea  of  all  their  institutions,  and 
icnce  of  American  nationality,  was  the  sacred  ness  of  human  nature- 
jQt  no  man  imagine  that  this  Nation  sprang  to  life  from  the  field  of 
r^ttysburg  or  the  trenches  of  Yorktown.  It  was  not  born  in  Philadel- 
ihia  nor  cradled  in  Faneuil  Hall.  Of  older  lineage  and  nobler  parentage 
$  the  great  Republic, 

"S'le  that  lifts  up  the  manhood  of  the  poor, 
She  of  the  open  soul  and  open  door, 
With  room  about  her  hearth  f  r  all  mankind." 

>hall  we  with  grave  historians,  like  Bancroft,  find  her  germinal  form 
n  the  Compact  made  in  the  May-flower?  Shall  we,  with  others, 
eek  her  origin  in  the  pulpit  of  John  Kuox  at  Edinburg?  Shall  we  witli 


16  THE  NATION  AND  THE  SOLDIER. 

a  great  German  historian,  declare  that  John  Calvin  was  the  virtual 
founder  of  the  United  States  of  America?  Were  the  roots  of  our  na 
tionality,  fastened  as  many  believe,  in  the  soil  of  Marston  Moor  where 
Cromwell's  Iron-sides  broke  in  pieces  the  army  of  King;  Charles  ?  ( )r 
shall  we  not  rather  look  back  of  all  these  to  the  holy  fields  of  Sacred 
Scriptures,  which  the  Sixteenth  Century  opened  again  to  mankind? 
"Free  America,"  it  has  been  truly  said,  "was  born  of  the  Bible.'' 
Hence  came  many  of  the  strongest  impulses  which  colonized  these  shores. 
Hence  came  simpler  forms  of  self-government  in  town  and  church  that 
have  gone  with  our  civilization  in  its  westward  march.  Hence  came  the 
Christian  teaching,  reversing  the  maxims  of  the  Old  World,  that  the 
state  was  made  for  man  and  not  man  for  the  state.  Hence  came  the 
observance  of  the  Lord's  Day,  the  bulwark  of  our  freedom  and  hence  the 
teaching  of  Biblical  truth  to  the  young,  which  Webster  declared,  has 
.done  more  to  preserve  our  liberties  than  grave  statesmen  and  armed  sol 
diers."  Hence  came  our  public  schools  and  the  long  line  of  colleges  that 
stretch  from  the  elms  of  Cambridge  to  the  Pacific  shore.  Hence  came 
also,  the  separation  of  Church  and  State,  perhaps  the  greatest  revolution 
of  the  modern  ages — that  soul-liberty,  which  Roger  Williams  learned 
from  Him  who  said  "My  kingdom  is  not  of  this  world."  From  the 
Bible  came,  as  Edward  Everett  declared,  the  better  elements  of  our  na 
tional  institutions.  It  was  an  echo  from  the  Scriptures  which  Jefferson 
sounded  in  the  teaching,  that  all  men  were  created  equal  in  their  right 
to  life,  liberty  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness.  From  the  Bible  came  the 
moral  force  that  carried  through  our  first  Revolution,  "the  church,"  a& 
Wendell  Phillips  said,,  "leading  the  van."  From  the  Bible  has  come  the 
salt  of  righteousness  that  thus  far  has  withstood  the  wastings  of  corrupt 
ion.  From  the  same  source  have  sprung  the  moral  reformations  that 
have  preserved  our  nationality  and  freedom,  Garrison  and  Sunnier  hurl 
ing  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  at  the  barbarism  of  slavery,  and  Abraham 
Lincoln  declaring  that  a  "nation  divided  against  itself,  can  not  stand." 

Fellow-citizens  of  the  great  American  Republic,  our  nationality  i& 
of  heavenly  birth.  It  is  no  "mud-giant."  It  does  not  represent  to  the 
world,  as  Carlyle  once  said,  merely  dollars  and  cotton.  It  has,  indeed 
greatly  augmented  the  material  comforts  of  mankind  and,  alas !  it  has 
often  dragged  into  its  current  the  filth  of  unrighteousness.  But  looking 
back  the  stream  of  our  national  development  we  see  its  fountain-head  far 
up  amid  the  shining  hills  of  God.  Ours  is  a  "land  to  human  nature 
dear,"  and  hence,  when  our  national  existence  was  imperilled,  what 
multitudes  of  her  citizens,  not  born  on  her  soil,  but  prizing  her  blessings, 
ruse  up  to  defend  her'  The  sons  of  Germany  and  England  contended 


THE    NATION  AND  THE    SOLDIER.  17 

side  by  side  with  the  children  of  the  Mayflower,  and  on  many  a  deadly 
field,  the  storm  of  battle  raged  fiercest  where  fought  the  gallant  Irish 
soldiers  whose  fathers  proved  their  valor  with  Wellington  at  Waterloo. 
And  when  the  slave-holders'  Confederacy  appealed  to  Great  Britain  to 
interfere  in  our  struggle,  and  the  appeal  was  seconded  by  the  ruling 
classes  of  England,  the  heroic  working-men  of  Lancashire  said  "No,'v 
and  they  saw  their  children  gathered  in  rugs  about  them,  crying  the 
piteous  cry  of  famine,  rather  than  lift  one  finger  against  the  Republic 
which  had  become  identified  with  the  interests  of  the  poor  throughout 
the  world. 

Therefore  it  is,  that  remembering  the  origin  of  our  American 
nationality,  and  recalling  what  precious  interests  and  celestial  truths  it 
enshrines,  I  cannot  doubt  its  continuance.  It  has  in  it  the  power  of 
self-preservation.  It  can  meet  the  new  perils  as  it  met  and  con 
quered  the  old.  Receiving  such  various  and  conflicting  elements 
from  all  lands,  it  must  teach  them  to  subordinate  every  other  in 
terest  and  allegiance  to  that  supreme  loyalty  which  the  Nation  requires. 
The  flowers  you  are  so  soon  to  scatter  on  the  soldiers'  graves  are 
not  merely  tokens  of  personal  affection  and  tributes  to  heroic  courage. 
They  represent  your  loyalty  to  the  supreme  fact  of  American  nationality 
and  all  that  it  signifies  of  good  to  humanity.  They  represent  your 
gratitude  to  God  for  the  victory  of  right  over  wrong.  And  your 
memorial  services  help  to  quicken  that  national  spirit  which  inspired 
the  soul  of  him  who  wrote  "America"  and  the  lips  of  the  thousands  who 
have  sung  it  so  grandly  to-night  in  the  presence  of  its  author.  From  this 
good  hour  let  there  be  kindled  a  holier  patriotism  in  all  our  hearts.  Let 
the  high  resolve  be  here  made,  that  the  national  idea  shall  continue  its 
supremacy,  and  that  National  citizenship  shall  possess  all  its  rights. 

"Each  honest  man  shall  have  his  vote, 
Each  child  shall  have  his  sci.ool, 
For  what  avail  the  plough  or  sail, 
Or  land  or  life,  if  freedom  fail  ?'' 

And  may  God  save  the  Republic ! 


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